


Juliet is a Queen and deserves all the good things

by cantbother



Category: Romeo And Juliet - All Media Types, Romeo And Juliet - Shakespeare, SHAKESPEARE William - Works
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, I REGRET NOTHING, Other, cause that's what she deserves, i give juliet an agenda, it was really only a question of time, listen uni profs love them some shakespeare, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2020-10-28 07:09:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20774561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cantbother/pseuds/cantbother
Summary: In which Juliet has a slightly different agenda than in the play, Romeo is just along for the ride, and Verona won't know what hit her.





	Juliet is a Queen and deserves all the good things

**Author's Note:**

> found this buried deep within my documents and thought "why not?".  
but also it's been so long since i last posted something that i spent a good 5 minutes playing around before i found the right button so like... go me!

The hall was filled to the brim with people in various states of drunkenness and absentmindedly Romeo though that he felt like a ghost, passing the other guests unnoticed. There was a certain calmness to the chaos around him and he tried to keep his head down as best as he could, as to not attract too much attention.

Somewhere around here, Rosaline was unassuming of his presence, but if things would go the way he hoped they would, he’d leave into the morning with a promise of her love. And, should the plan fail, he could still do what Benvolio had advised him to: appreciate the other beautiful girls of his city. Absentmindedly he thought that if he was to make any advances on young ladies tonight, he really needed some alcohol first to strengthen his nerves. 

That was when he saw her - possibly the most beautiful girl to ever walk the face of the earth. 

The air froze in his chest and all the sounds around him faded as his eyes stayed fixed on the young girl in front of him. With a deep, calming breath he started to move towards her, almost as if in trance. But just a few steps away from the almost ethereal creature he halted again, partly to admire some more, partly because he was not sure how to proceed from here on. 

The problem solved itself when she turned around and her eyes fell on him almost immediately. Following the strange pull, they closed the space in between them and met in the middle. Entranced he could do nothing but drink in the sight in front of him, when the girl opened her mouth. 

“Would you care to explain why exactly you have been staring at me for the better part of the last half an hour?” 

That effectively shocked him out of his daze. 

“Excuse me?” 

The girl snorted in an, for such a pretty face, impressively unattractive manner. 

“Right, cut the innocent act. You weren’t invited, so who are you? What are you doing here? And stop the staring, it’s creeping me out.” 

All his carefully worded praises for her beauty and declarations of devotion evaporated and left nothing but a bitter aftertaste. Romeo suddenly felt like a little boy that was being rebuked, and at the mental image his anger rose. 

“I was indeed invited, milady,” he spat the title out like an insult. “just not by you. Who I am is of no importance to you. As to why I was staring at you, it seems as if your appearance was created solely to mask the striking venom of your soul.” 

A perfectly arched eyebrow was lifted while she watched him quietly. 

“In this case I’d love to know who did invite this charming gentleman if the head of the house did not to know of it?” 

His heart sank and his insides turned to ice. It would be just his luck that out of all the people here, he had to run into the daughter of the host. 

And then the full severity of the situation began to dawn on him. A Capulet. He was talking to a Capulet, and had just been found uninvited, and more importantly, unlawfully on their ground. The sheer idiocy of his actions began to sink in. He was a dead man. 

And worse even, the situation between the two families would likely escalate even further as a result and all this would be brought upon him and their city, because a little girl was grumpy. Well, he thought grimly, the least he could do was go down in honour. 

“I have been invited by chance, milady. A chance that, upon further inspection, doesn’t seem to be in either of our favours.” 

She observed him and suddenly seemed to come to a decision.

“Who are you?” she asked again, and her words cut deeper than knives. There was no way around it anymore. 

“Romeo Montague, milady.” , he said, fighting for his voice not to betray his shaking nerves while he waited frozen for her reaction, and was completely taken off guard, because instead of calling immediately for the guards or one of her relatives, her eyes started to shine strangely and she broke out into a wicked grin. 

Warily he eyed her when she grabbed his arm and dragged him roughly to a more secluded corner. 

“Have you lost your mind, good man? What are you thinking, proclaiming your name like this, especially here and now of all places and times?” 

Instead of feeling offended he frowned softly and, if unwillingly, leaned in closer as she had done. 

“What makes this time different?” 

“I’m to meet my future groom tonight.” 

Suddenly she seemed quite a lot more alike to the lovely creature he had admired before, looking younger and her cheeks coloured either by excitement or bashfulness. 

“This is your engagement ball?” he asked, surprised. The girl nodded in response. Instantly he felt bad for his intruding and, mixed with his desire to leave as fast as possible, he bowed his head as little as he could without seeming straight up offensive and turned to make a run for the exit. Instead, he felt a small hand holding him back. 

“I understand that you wish to leave, and I would not advise you against it by any means, but is there any chance of you hearing me out first?”

Intrigued and curious what the young, childish and, up to this point, shockingly rude Capulet could possibly have to say to him, he accepted. The girl, though, remained quiet for a few beats, obviously trying to sort out what to say. 

“I am but a girl, Montague, and I am not worth much to my family in regards of my wits. But I am not dumb, and I know of the feud between our families and I know of the bloodsheds in the streets. With their dispute our families are driving this whole city to become a battlefield.  
Neither of our parents is going to end it any time soon, and I do not doubt that my voice is hardly going to gain strength with my marriage, but there will come a time when you will be in charge and there will be a time I will make myself heard.  
I was not supposed to ever meet you, just as I was never supposed to know of the vendetta, and if all of my family’s diplomacies go according to plan, I never will again. This is the only chance I will ever get, to ask you for the promise.” 

It took him some time to snap out of the stunned silence he had fallen into during her passionate speech. 

“What promise?” he managed to ask finally. Her cold, icy eyes bored relentlessly and mercilessly into him. 

“That when our time comes, we will stop all of this killing.”

It was like seeing her in a new light, Romeo mused when he watched how her chest moved heavily still from her zealous speech, eyes bright and blush high on her cheeks. 

She wasn’t the fragile, lovely girl he had imagined for. In place of this illusion he found a warrior, preparing for battle unbeknownst to everyone around him and instinctively he knew that the force the Capulet was to grow into was not something he wanted as his enemy. 

Before he knew what he was doing, he felt himself nod. The girl nodded back, pleased, if not a little smug.

“But now, really do leave as quickly as you can, before somebody finds you out.” With these dismissive words she turned to return to the feast that was after all, as he now knew, being held in her honour. 

“Wait!” he called, at the last moment, when she began to disappear into the masses again. Questioning look in her eyes, she glanced back at him. 

“What is your name, Milady?”  
His chest was heaving and he felt stupidly scared that for some reason she would not answer. Instead, she smiled at him, a bit wolfishly. 

“Juliet Capulet, my dear. Romeo Montague, may we meet again when our time comes.” 

The last he saw was the skirt of her dress when she dived into the crowd and out of sight like a ghost.


End file.
